27 Aug 14
I Should Visit Skyrim. Is The VorpX Driver Worth It?

The VorpX driver allows you to play currently released PC games such as Skyrim and Fallout on your Oculus Rift in Stereo 3D. Earlier this month VorpX developer Ralf Ostertag announced the release of a new update for the VorpX software to support the new Oculus Rift Development Kit 2.

Older games do not support VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift DK2, so Vorpx makes it possible by adding head tracking, positional tracking and 3D support to non VR enabled games. Games such as Half-Life 2 already have VR functionality and others like Portal 2 are planned to support VR in the future, but other games have no features planned and have to rely on custom mods and individual tweaking.

VorpX currently is the only available software that allows you to experience modern on your Oculus Rift. DK1 / DK2.

At a $40 price tag, its easy to be on the fence about Vorpx. After buying an Oculus Rift, good headphones, an Xbox controller and random VR peripherals and equipment, throwing an extra $40 on a driver may seem a bit overkill but you’ll quickly forget opening your wallet as soon as you enter the world of Rapture, Azeroth or Skyrim in glorious VR. If you have an Oculus Rift and ordered it with the intention to use it for gaming I can’t recommend Vorpx highly enough. It installs pretty quickly and has a neat in game control panel to adjust each game to the user’s prefered settings. While games like Bioshock Infinite can be a bit too intense for first time rifters (especially during shootouts), games such as The Stanley Parable, Skyrim and Dear Esther feel right at home on the DK2.

The driver is currently in beta and purchasing it now will get you all future updates. As the consumer version of the Rift draws near there may be better solutions in near future but for now, the only surefire way to run older games in VR is through the use of Vorpx and as of today… I’m fine with that.

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4 Comments

Chris

Posted at 14:57h, 16 May

It’s ridiculous to have to pay for compatibility, if you spend $400 everything should be free, drivers weren’t meant to be made to pay for, they are made to make things more compatible with your OS. I think it’s redundant and greedy. No thank you.

stu

Posted at 05:41h, 15 July

@Chris, when the driver is provided by the company making the hardware or the application then perhaps yes. If they don’t though and a third party goes to the trouble of making it, IMO they’re totally justified to ask to be compensated for it. How else would they have the time and resources to maintain it?
Sure it’d be handy to have to only deal with one vendor and get complete solutions in one purchase but that’s just not how it goes, especially for a new field like VR.

Michael

Posted at 14:11h, 10 August

Chris, the vorpx drivers are made by a 3rd party and the VR developers aren’t getting any cut in this so how does it make them greedy? If it wasn’t for them you would be stuck hacking in your own VR support or waiting for games that support VR.

JEFF

Posted at 05:12h, 21 November

Sadly Chris is spot on. There is no way to even tell if VorpX actually works. As someone who bought the Rift DK2 almost 2 years ago, I have had 2 games that actually work as expected, and Half Life 2. Oculus should have provided driver support or done whatever the vorpX guy may or may not have done (the whole thing could be a scam considering its $40 and there is no refund and they can easily say its “something on your system that conflicts”). Its quite obvious though that the last thing Oculus wants to do is breath life into everyone’s massive library of older titles. What they *do* want to do is build hype, sell barely working apparatus to stupid people, and then move on and sell you a new oculus that will supposedly have support.
1) There were a couple of games made for the DK1.. once the DK2 came out, those games mysteriously no longer work. There are a few developers working on big titles. And now that the Gear VR is coming out they have announced that 25 games will be available for it in December. You’d think that since Gear VR is from oculus that Oculus would have at least ensured that those games supported the DK2.
Oculus is milking everyone for everything they can and giving as little /nothing as possible. They build hype and work on making things incompatible. They want people’s money and thats it.

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